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Siberian Discovery Suggests Almost All Dinosaurs Were Feathered
A new study published in Science (abstract) suggests that most dinosaurs were covered with feathers. This conclusion was drawn after the discovery of fossils belonging to a 1.5-meter-long, two-legged dinosaur called Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus. "The fossils, which included six skulls and many more bones, greatly broaden the number of families of dinosaurs sporting feathers—downy, ribboned, and thin ones in this case—indicating that plumes evolved from the scales that covered earlier reptiles, probably as insulation." Its distinctiveness from earlier theropod fossil discoveries suggests that feathered dinosaurs appeared much further back in history than previously thought. Paleontologist Stephen Brusatte said, "This does mean that we can now be very confident that feathers weren't just an invention of birds and their closest relatives, but evolved much deeper in dinosaur history. I think that the common ancestor of dinosaurs probably had feathers, and that all dinosaurs had some type of feather, just like all mammals have some type of hair."
Time to remake Jurassic Park. And while he's at it, Speilberg can change all the guns to flashlights!
This means we'll have to redraw 200 years worth of artwork...
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I remember hearing once that if the first dinosaurs discovered had wishbones we would have never said they went extinct. We would have said they were a past generation of birds that died off.
In your face Jurassic Park!
Find some more feathered fossils and conclude that ALL dinosaurs probably had feathers.
I propose that a heck of a lot more digging and research is necessary before anyone starts putting that in print.
Sure. Sauropods float like a duck.
Pre-historic animals in Siberia mutated to grow feathers and withstand the blistering cold. That's called evolution. It still doesn't mean all dinossaurs were feathered. I bet in Australia they wore bathing suits.
Of course these dinosaurs couldn't fly; everyone knows that in the late Triassic, the Pterosaurs received a broad-reaching patent titled "Feathery Apparatus for Flight". Regrettably, the patent term length at the time was over one hundred million years.
It wasn't blistering cold in Sibera when the Dinosaur's lived.
The next Jurassic Park could be a lot more interesting.
But probably won't be.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Sounds like the dinosaurs were humiliated backwards... feathered ...then tarred.
There are two types of people in the world; those who believe there are two types of people, and those who don't.
For those of us who have been following the literature on the subject, this doesn't really come as a surprise. Rather than that this fossil shows that all/most dinosaurs had feathers where we previously assumed this to be the case only for some groups, this fossil is a confirmation of the already commonly held view (in the field) that feathers were to all probability basal in dinosaurs.
Giant Chickensaurus Rex from Elmo in Grouchland?
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net...
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Wouldn't this bolster the argument that dinosaurs were warm blooded creatures?
What's their definition of "most dinosaurs"? Maybe most as in, there was this one tiny feathered dinosaur that bred like rabbits and was everywhere? And do they mean "had feathers" as in had 3 tiny feathers on the top of a big lizardy dino head? Big dinos almost always had scales from what I've read. And perhaps size is part of is as is seen in recent animals and animals today... larger mammals have far far less fur except during the times of ice ages.
I found a couple of links that show scales, no feathers, of big dinosaurs. All this feather business is just hype.
http://blogs.discovermagazine....
The scale-like structures you see on dinosaur skin are known as called tubercles, and resemble the polygonal desiccation cracks that you might see on a dried up mud flat (because we all investigate sedimentary structures
http://www.amnh.org/exhibition...
Very little dinosaur skin fossilized, so what we know about sauropod skin comes from impressions made when it pressed into mud or sand that then hardened and turned to stone. These impressions show that sauropod skin had small bumps and scales that didn't overlap. Some sauropods had bony growths in the skin called osteoderms. But no sauropods had hair or feathers.
So T-Rex might have looked like a giant chicken?
I've never understood this idea. Sure at a macroscopic scale there is some resemblance between scales and feathers, but on looking close you get an entirely different structure.
Scales being basically flat plates and feathers being long rods with interconnected hooks on them.
If this story is correct and way more dinosaurs had feathers than previously thought, then why force it?
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
yup.
Not quite. Sauropods are dinosaurs too and none have been found with feathers that I'm aware of.
I timothy 2:3-4: "This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."
(see also 2 Peter 3:9)
So...God wants us to be saved, but you don't? You have in your hands an irrefutable test that will bring us all to knowledge of the truth (and hence salvation) and yet you are refusing to give it to us? Don't you want to please God by furthering his desires (that we all might be saved)? Are you not humble enough to think that God gave you this test to make you an instrument for His purposes (saving us)?
How about 1 Corinthians 13:2 "If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."
You don't love us enough to share your proof of God with us and save us? According to Paul, then, you are nothing, even though you can "fathom all mysteries."
Methinks your statements betray spite and arrogance. Jesus did not say very nice things about people like you.
But my guess is the other Dinobots won't like it.
"Me Grimlock no like being bird"
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Next they'll be telling us Pluto isn't a planet. Enough with this revisionism!
And by god if Brontosaurus was good enough for Fred Flintstone, it's good enough for me!
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
My favorite cracked teapot theory is that the dinosaurs were dropped off by aliens to kill of the humans, but we won.
It's about as survivable as some of these theories. After all, "we found some things so most all things must be like this based off this tiny sample that survived" has such a great probability of being correct. Since we've some concept of the complexity of our ecosystem, I'm thinking the ecosystem that may have existed then could very well be just as complex as what we have today, or perhaps far more fantastic. We just don't know. And neither do they. They have some evidence that suggests or supports this, but we don't know how prevalent it was. We weren't there. We can't evaluate how pervasive anything was unless we know the whole.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
- H. L. Mencken
My addition this is that there's probably several answers...
pack
Best ever Movie
"in dinosaur history": really? There are historical documents written while dinosaurs were around? Ok, I admit I'm being a bit pedantic...
Other commentators are speaking imprecisely. Science is empirical, which means that it is only "true" to the limits of observation. There are always limits to our observational abilities, hence, every theory of science is at least a little bit wrong. This is also related to the concept of "proof", of which the only correct interpretation in science is "evidence" -- theories can only be disproved.
One way to look at this, would be that everything science tells us is wrong (especially the parts you don't like). Another perspective would be that, while it is expected that most theories will be refined or discarded eventually, empirical testing and observation have led to many advances in our understanding of the universe. It's also valid to prefer a rationalist approach, which is a charitable way to describe creationists, but note that while exact proofs are possible in an axiomatic system, that system does not necessarily describe the real (empirical) world.